For the third time ever the WWE is breaking out their 3 Stages of Hell gimmick. It isn’t the Hell in a Cell match, which I predicted yesterday, but it’s the only gimmick which is actually more rare, so I’ll count it as a partial win in predicting what would occur. This match has produced two of the better WWE matches this decade, one between Triple H and Shawn Michaels, another between Triple H and Steve Austin, though this has little chance of living up to the quality of those two.
First off, for the unaware, a Three Stages of Hell match is a two out of three falls match where each fall has a different stipulation. The stipulations immediately put this match at a disadvantage compared to previous attempts. With Shawn Michaels, they really went all out, with a Street Fight, a Cage Match and finally a Ladder Match. That was three sick gimmicks with huge bumps all around. For the Steve Austin match, they began more slowly with a normal match before going to a Street Fight and then finally a Cage. This match with Randy Orton features a normal match, which we’ve seen a hundred times and is always boring, a falls count anywhere match, which merely guarantees those live in attendance won’t be able to see half the match, and finally a stretcher match, which is among the most boring stipulations in wrestling, that has a lot of both performers being carried around instead of actually fighting.
Next is the obvious- there is no comparison between Triple H of that era and Triple H now. Back then he was putting on classics with everyone. He’s years away from coming close to either of those performances. Of course, he isn’t wrestling alone. Randy Orton’s best match wouldn’t make Shawn Michaels or Steve Austin, two top five all time wrestlers of the modern era, top twenty. Add in that you can make a case that Hunter is both Austin and Michaels top opponent (you’d probably lose the argument, but there’s a case to be made) and that Orton has no chemistry with Triple H and what you come up with is something that can only sully the legacy of what has been an amazing type of match thus far.
Once again, please help out and subscribe to my Examiner articles. There’s a new one up today and later in the day another column will appear. Thanks as always for the support and remember, be back on Pulse tomorrow for another column here as well.
